Business Insider founder Henry Blodget's anti-Balthazar-bathroom-attendant screed escalated into a full-blown media spectacle Monday morning after it culminated in a decision by Keith McNally, the Soho brasserie's long-time proprietor, to "relieve the restaurant’s bathroom attendants of their duties," as McNally put it to Foster Kamer.

But before all of that, we received a tip that Blodget's fateful Balthazar visit this past Friday also happened to be a breakfast date with Gawker Media impresario Nick Denton, a fact that was confirmed in Gawker's own item on the bathroom-attendant imbroglio.

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The agenda for the tête-à-tête, according to our source: "[Blodget] was meeting with Denton to discuss a Gawker/BI merger."

It wouldn't be too far-fetched: Blodget and Denton are mutual admirers who've struck up a content-sharing partnership in the past. And there's long been speculation about the end-games for their respective blog empires.

"It would not be false to say we discussed some sort of potential Gawker Media/Business Insider merger/partnership/collaboration," Blodget told Capital when reached for comment via email. "We did!"

But he added: "I would just caution folks not to start hyperventilating about it. Nick and I discuss lots of things. We also discussed his wedding, for example. And Gawker's awesome new commenting system. And our collective disbelief that some journalists don't appreciate how much readers love stories about everyday things like plane rides."

(Disclosure: I worked for Blodget for six months in 2010 as Business Insider's media reporter.)

Asked if he cared to elaborate, Denton offered the following: "My respect for Henry Blodget's editorial ethos and training is longstanding—and well documented. (He's one of the only outsiders ever to present at a Gawker editorial offsite.) Read into that what you may."